Saturday, September 11, 2004
End-of-summer wrap-up
So some of you are probably wondering where I’ve been. I know this because I’ve gotten e-mails from you, asking where I’ve been. The short version of the story goes something like this: home, Cleveland, home, sleeping. The long version of the story goes like this…
I suppose I should go in chronological order so that you can follow along with the short version, but screw that. I’m going in order of excitement. And the most exciting thing of all is that I finally have a job again. For a while there, I actually had two jobs. Or two job offers, at least. One was from the place with my old office furniture, and one was from the company that employs Justin in Kansas City. I spent the first part of this week going over the pros and cons of each job (and writing said pros and cons down on a Southwest cocktail napkin), and finally decided to go with the job here. Partly because I thought it would be more fun and challenging, partly because I really, really hate moving (although I do really like living in new places, which is hard to do without moving), and partly because I hoped I might find my digital recorder in one of the desks. Anyway, I start my new job on Monday. I’ve noticed a disturbing trend among some of my fellow bloggers (Lyndsay, the Tyrant), which is that the quality of their blogging is inversely proportionate to the quality of their job. A new, better job means a decline in the frequency of blogging—or worse, in the case of Lyndsay, the end of blogging altogether. I hope this won’t happen to me.
The next most exciting thing was my weekend in Cleveland with Diana, Nikki and Kristen. We had a fabulous time setting up impromptu beauty salons, trying to help out Huey Lewis in the propagation of his catch phrase, playing detective in Kristen’s freezer, learning that Rodin is not in fact from Cleveland, forcing Kristen’s husband to participate in girly bonding, pretending to be roadkill, playing games of “I’ve never” and discovering that we’ve all become far less interesting since college, and watching Diana try to go down the up escalator (or, in my case, hearing about Diana trying to go down the up escalator). Eventually, I’ll have pictures up on the site that will explain some of that.
On my last night in Cleveland, Kristen and I went to see Garden State, which we both loved. That night, unable to sleep, I blogged about my thoughts on the movie. However, I didn’t publish it at the time (because I couldn’t get it in the correct font), so I just thought I’d wait and publish when I blogged again. Of course, now it seems really strange to suddenly publish a post from Tuesday, so I’m just pasting it here:
After reading (mostly) glowing endorsements of Garden State from Rachel and the Tyrant, I went into the movie with pretty high expectations, which is almost never a good thing. But I'm happy to report that my expectations were definitely met and possibly exceeded. I loved it, and I think what I loved the most was how real the characters felt. Specifically, Natalie Portman's character reminded me of myself more than any other fictional character ever has. And I don't mean that I identified with her or that I wanted to be like her...I mean, it was literally like watching myself on the big screen. (And very close up, I might add, as Kristen and I arrived late and had to sit in the front row.) Part of it was her penchant for starting a new sentence when she was already in the middle of one. Part of it was the fact that the step she used to demonstrate her tap-dancing ability was the same one I use to demonstrate my tap-dancing ability. And while I'm definitely not what you'd call a liar (I'm really bad at it, actually), I do sometimes like to tell people (mostly my sister) really outlandish things just to see if they'll believe them...and I end up confessing right away, partly because I feel bad, but mostly because I'm unable to keep a straight face. But the thing that struck me the most was something most other people probably didn't even notice about the character, which is the way she constantly played with the ponytail holder around her wrist. In fact, at one point during the movie, I noticed her playing with it and looked down to discover that I was doing the exact same thing. Throw in a little more sarcasm and take away the hoodie as a wardrobe staple (I prefer jean jackets), and the character would pretty much be me. It kind of makes me wonder if Zach Braff and I knew each other in a previous life or something. I wouldn't mind that, actually. He looks like he gives good hugs.
Finally, in the midst of all this excitement, I haven't forgotten about the most amazing thing I saw on The Amazing Race. This week, it comes in the form of a quote from Brandon:
"Inflate a zorb?! Aw, baby, I hate doing that!"
Kind of makes you wonder how many zorbs Brandon inflates in his day-to-day existence. As we near the finale, I wasn't all that surprised or upset to see the Twinkies bite the dust. Now, if only we could get rid of Collin and Christie (or at least Collin), we could have, for the first time in history, a finale entirely composed of teams I like. (Or at least teams I don't hate. The moms' constant squealing is starting to grate, but they're mostly harmless.) Unfortunately, barring another breach of international law, I don't see this happening. Collin may be a complete asshole, but that doesn't mean he's not a smart and efficient racer. I guess it's too much to ask that, for once, those traits be mutually exclusive.
So some of you are probably wondering where I’ve been. I know this because I’ve gotten e-mails from you, asking where I’ve been. The short version of the story goes something like this: home, Cleveland, home, sleeping. The long version of the story goes like this…
I suppose I should go in chronological order so that you can follow along with the short version, but screw that. I’m going in order of excitement. And the most exciting thing of all is that I finally have a job again. For a while there, I actually had two jobs. Or two job offers, at least. One was from the place with my old office furniture, and one was from the company that employs Justin in Kansas City. I spent the first part of this week going over the pros and cons of each job (and writing said pros and cons down on a Southwest cocktail napkin), and finally decided to go with the job here. Partly because I thought it would be more fun and challenging, partly because I really, really hate moving (although I do really like living in new places, which is hard to do without moving), and partly because I hoped I might find my digital recorder in one of the desks. Anyway, I start my new job on Monday. I’ve noticed a disturbing trend among some of my fellow bloggers (Lyndsay, the Tyrant), which is that the quality of their blogging is inversely proportionate to the quality of their job. A new, better job means a decline in the frequency of blogging—or worse, in the case of Lyndsay, the end of blogging altogether. I hope this won’t happen to me.
The next most exciting thing was my weekend in Cleveland with Diana, Nikki and Kristen. We had a fabulous time setting up impromptu beauty salons, trying to help out Huey Lewis in the propagation of his catch phrase, playing detective in Kristen’s freezer, learning that Rodin is not in fact from Cleveland, forcing Kristen’s husband to participate in girly bonding, pretending to be roadkill, playing games of “I’ve never” and discovering that we’ve all become far less interesting since college, and watching Diana try to go down the up escalator (or, in my case, hearing about Diana trying to go down the up escalator). Eventually, I’ll have pictures up on the site that will explain some of that.
On my last night in Cleveland, Kristen and I went to see Garden State, which we both loved. That night, unable to sleep, I blogged about my thoughts on the movie. However, I didn’t publish it at the time (because I couldn’t get it in the correct font), so I just thought I’d wait and publish when I blogged again. Of course, now it seems really strange to suddenly publish a post from Tuesday, so I’m just pasting it here:
After reading (mostly) glowing endorsements of Garden State from Rachel and the Tyrant, I went into the movie with pretty high expectations, which is almost never a good thing. But I'm happy to report that my expectations were definitely met and possibly exceeded. I loved it, and I think what I loved the most was how real the characters felt. Specifically, Natalie Portman's character reminded me of myself more than any other fictional character ever has. And I don't mean that I identified with her or that I wanted to be like her...I mean, it was literally like watching myself on the big screen. (And very close up, I might add, as Kristen and I arrived late and had to sit in the front row.) Part of it was her penchant for starting a new sentence when she was already in the middle of one. Part of it was the fact that the step she used to demonstrate her tap-dancing ability was the same one I use to demonstrate my tap-dancing ability. And while I'm definitely not what you'd call a liar (I'm really bad at it, actually), I do sometimes like to tell people (mostly my sister) really outlandish things just to see if they'll believe them...and I end up confessing right away, partly because I feel bad, but mostly because I'm unable to keep a straight face. But the thing that struck me the most was something most other people probably didn't even notice about the character, which is the way she constantly played with the ponytail holder around her wrist. In fact, at one point during the movie, I noticed her playing with it and looked down to discover that I was doing the exact same thing. Throw in a little more sarcasm and take away the hoodie as a wardrobe staple (I prefer jean jackets), and the character would pretty much be me. It kind of makes me wonder if Zach Braff and I knew each other in a previous life or something. I wouldn't mind that, actually. He looks like he gives good hugs.
Finally, in the midst of all this excitement, I haven't forgotten about the most amazing thing I saw on The Amazing Race. This week, it comes in the form of a quote from Brandon:
"Inflate a zorb?! Aw, baby, I hate doing that!"
Kind of makes you wonder how many zorbs Brandon inflates in his day-to-day existence. As we near the finale, I wasn't all that surprised or upset to see the Twinkies bite the dust. Now, if only we could get rid of Collin and Christie (or at least Collin), we could have, for the first time in history, a finale entirely composed of teams I like. (Or at least teams I don't hate. The moms' constant squealing is starting to grate, but they're mostly harmless.) Unfortunately, barring another breach of international law, I don't see this happening. Collin may be a complete asshole, but that doesn't mean he's not a smart and efficient racer. I guess it's too much to ask that, for once, those traits be mutually exclusive.
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